Archives
During the heady years of 1964-1966, our "basement band" NB3 (Nic Baker Trio) wrote more than a dozen songs. We fortunately kept the lyrics and chord progressions (recorded by Nic, the group’s designated typist) in a bright-yellow plastic binder.
On June 22, 1967, the Potter brothers left Salt Lake City, Utah. Around noon on that bright sunny day, Nic walked up the street, his dog's leash in one hand, the familiar notebook in the other. Nic gave us the song file; we reciprocated with our aluminum trash can (I suppose one man’s trash is another’s treasure.) Somewhere deep inside me, I knew this file of Baker/Potter pop songs would someday have a profound affect on my life. Since this was the only written record of our musical odyssey, I always stored these transcripts in a safe place. I never knew why, but I still kept them.
Throughout my years of high school, college, a 28-year career with an international telecommunications company, marriage, kids, dogs, and day-to-day life, I kept the song folder in trunks or boxes that followed me from place to place, residence to residence, state to state. I would occasionally reflect fondly on these songs while subconsciously whistling a familiar melody from long ago. Somewhere in the house, like in the back of my mind, was a treasure neatly packed away and stored in some basement or attic. Throughout the years and decades, I would occasionally wonder what had become of the old song file, thinking back on Nic's goodbye present.
Fast forward to December 2003. My career had surprisingly ended with a company-wide initiative offering generous volunteer early-retirement packages as part of a "reduction in force." But what would I do in my spare time that had previously been dictated by a career following the principle that "the management clock has no hands?" Immediately, two thoughts came to mind: (1) dig up that old song folder; and (2) find Nic Baker. The first initiative would prove to be the simpler of the two.
I found the file neatly stashed away in a large box in the garage. I carefully thumbed through the lyrics, which were fast approaching their 40th year. When I told my brother Don about this rediscovery and showed him the lyrics, he commented that the antiquated state of each lyric sheet looked like papyrus! After all, Nic had typed them on an aged (even then) partially electric Smith Corona.
My great memory and fertile imagination have always compensated for my feeble academic skills. As I combed through the archive of the Baker/Potter "hit parade" of pop songs we wrote when 13 and 15 years old, all the melodies and harmonies, chord progressions, and drum rhythms surfaced. I thought, "Hey, these songs are really good," although I must admit bias. I asked Don if he would be willing to resurrect one of the songs and record it professionally. We'd try to recreate the sound of pop music in 1965. Don agreed, so we recorded "When I Met You" in a long one-day session in August 2004. Only if we achieved the sound we strived for as kids would we record the remainder of the songs. This recording process required 14 months of diligent planning, performing, editing, and polishing the sounds that once captured our adolescent imaginations.
The search for Nic, however, took even longer. We found him after 18 months, discovering that he lived just a few hours from us, not halfway around the world, as we had come to believe.
To say that Nic was surprised to hear from me is an understatement. But to learn that we were revisiting all the old songs from our past was, well, shocking! Don and I recruited Nic's musical services—piano accompaniment. We had come full circle, bringing our dreams to life and completing what we had started almost 40 years earlier.
This page displays the lyric sheets of most of the songs we recorded — including the two score smashed-bug guts on "Goodbye My Friend." If not for that fateful handoff on June 22, 1967, this project would have never seen the light of day.
NB3 hopes that this music will recreate a time of your life, as it has for us.
— Jim Potter
